It is estimated
that Soi Dog look after over 1000 dogs in temples, the SDF centre and
around the streets of Phuket. We desperately need sponsors to help us
continue to help us help the strays of Phuket!
The Centre
6 April
Here are the photos taken 6 April 2008 at the puppy shelter
construction site
behind the clinic, together with the sign which shows our
sponsors of the puppy shelter.
"Modelling" are Henry and Char Gray after a dog walking session.
Henry is the Regional manager for Thailand for the Evason hotel
group. Char who is fast becoming a regular up at the shelter is
holding what will be 2 of the first puppies to be in the
shelter.
The American School of the Hague have done some fantastic
fundraising so they could sponsor the shelter. Read about their
fundraising here.
8 March 2008
Saturday march the 8th. Will go down
as one of the most significant dates in our short history so far.
Although not fully complete, but under pressure from the Livestock
Office to move, our staff and volunteers arrived at first light at
the Pound for what would be a very long day.
Whilst Dr. Max treated the dogs currently receiving medication and
treatment, Khun Toom our shelter manager took Khun Dang and Khun Nit
to the new shelter along with volunteers Jenny Gardner and Jennifer
Caillis who is over from Canada and helping us at the moment.
At the old shelter our dog catchers and Khun Mali together with
Gill, Christy, Alan and new volunteer Rebecca from Australia, who is
a trained vet nurse, and is now living here for 2 years with her
partner, who has just started work with the Sheraton Hotel.
Hopefully his assignment will be longer!
Our two 12 year old star Swedish volunteers, Alicia and Anna also
joined us.
Photographer Toby was also on site to document the day and Channel
11 news also came along later in the morning.
All the dogs in our compounds and treatment areas had been
extensively treated for ticks thanks to donations of frontline,
revolution and advantage from visiting sponsors and the visiting vet
team from Michigan State University. The plan was to empty each
compound in turn, finishing off with the sick and injured dogs. Our
dog catchers would each take 10 dogs at a time and they would be
placed in the same group at the new shelter. The decision was made
not to feed them at the old shelter as normal but to wait until they
arrived at the new one. Each dog was checked for any lingering
ticks, (The pound is swamped with them), and had his or her nails
clipped by Rebecca before being loaded onto one of the 2 trucks.
Once the first load had gone the idea was to get the next lot ready
for immediate transfer whilst we waited for the trucks to return.
The one unknown factor was how many dogs from the Government
enclosures we would be allowed to take if any. We had been advised
that we could take the dogs that had been brought there that week
from Wat Manik, where the head monk does not like dogs and has
clearly not heard of the Buddhist principle regarding caring for all
living creatures. These dogs I had found cowering in fear at the
back of the compound behind the shelter.
After we had emptied the first compound, Alan immediately set to
work picking up these dogs and individual dogs that he knew were
sponsored or particularly weak.
The problem however was that all these dogs were riddled with
literally thousands of ticks. Rebecca injected them all with Ivomec
and they were all sent to the new shelter clinic where the two
Jennies along with Alicia and Anna spent nearly all day bathing
these dogs and removing ticks by hand. At one stage the entire floor
and most of the walls were covered with them. The dogs spent 3 days
in the clinic until the last of the ticks had either died or been
removed. What we did not consider was that many of the ticks dropped
off in the trucks and then promptly jumped on to other previously
tick free dogs and this has meant 2 days of further frontlining and
spraying in all the new enclosures. Ticks can be fatal to dogs
spreading diseases like Babesia and Ehrlichea.
The concept behind having concrete runs at the new shelter is to try
and prevent the type of infestation that exists at the pound.
To say that our staff and volunteers worked tirelessly is an
understatement. By the time the last dogs arrived at their new home
it was already dark and the tireless Khun Toom was still at it at
nine pm. The day was not without sadness and late in the evening I
returned to the old shelter to find Gill, Christy and Alan all in
tears. Alan was sitting in one of the quarantine pens with a dog
laid on his knee that had been rounded up by the local authority in
Patong some days earlier. Several of these dogs that arrived in a
sealed dustbin lorry were dead on arrival, and although this one
survived he was clearly dying now and Dr. Max sadly had to put him
to sleep to stop him suffering any more. It is the hopelessness of
not being able to intervene in these happenings that can get even
the most hardened volunteer down, but we persevere as without us,
these animals would have absolutely nobody to help them, and by now
thousands more would have suffered and died in horrible
circumstances.
It is of course early days at the new shelter. We await still the
trees which will provide much needed natural shade, and the
treatment/ quarantine block and puppy shelter are still to be
completed. The cost has risen dramatically and we are still
desperate for funds to finish the job. One UK foundation that had
promise a substantial donation which we were counting on backed out
as the funds were needed for an emergency elsewhere which was a
blow, but the same week the people of Tower Hamlets in London had a
fund raiser and guess what, they raised the same amount that had
been promised by the foundation. Similarly we have just heard that
the 5th graders at the American school of the Hague have raised over
3,000 euros through sponsored runs, baking cakes and other
activities and this money will go towards the new puppy shelter to
be named after them.
Lachlan and his group in Melbourne have been hard at it in all
weathers raising funds at car boot sales, and Rob and Mark have been
similarly busy in San Francisco. So as you can see it has been a
universal effort. I apologise for not naming more people here but to
everybody from many different countries
thank you from the bottom of
our hearts for making this possible!!
19 Jan 08
The hospital is taking shape on the left
22 Dec 07
The photos below were taken 22 Dec 07. One shows the first block
starting to take shape with roof now on. The roof support steelwork
was being installed on the second block. The other photo shows work
starting on what will be the hospital with prep room, 2 operating
theatres and holding area for dogs pre and post surgery.
11 Dec 07
Dear friends,
Another 2 weeks have past since the last update and the shelter is
progressing well. We are still at the labour intensive stage but once
all the pillars are up Dr. Suchon assures me that the roof and
fencing will go up very quickly. He is still hopeful that the main
enclosures will be completed by the end of the year.
The photo shows
a birdseye view of this area. I am not as confident and feel it will
be well into January before we can move the dogs there. He is
looking at employing additional labour to construct the clinic and
the additional areas that will be needed, which include treatment
area, quarantine area and puppy enclosure
.
In the meantime of course we continue to work flat out as usual. The
other 2 pictures show two volunteer vets who worked with us last
month; Karin Ekman from Sweden and Anna Wierenga from Holland
working at the clinic. Our Thai vet left at the end of the month to
open his own practise further north and we are interviewing
applicants this week to replace him.
In the meantime Dr. Suchon and
Dr. Trethep who are both on our board are providing treatment and
important sterilizations such as females in season. We already have
2 Australian vets scheduled in January and a team from the Michigan
State University is planning a trip at the end of January early
February. Good news is that Khun Toom who is the wife of Dr. Suchon
has agreed to manage the new shelter.
Khun Toom has worked
tirelessly on behalf of SDF over the years and has just resigned
from her position with the International Red Cross here to devote
more time to us. She has extensive veterinary experience herself,
having managed the Phuket animal Hospital, and it will be a great
boon to have her on board in this new capacity.
This week she has a meeting with the local education department to
look at bringing local school children directly to the shelter for
education purposes.
Next week we have a fund raising party at the Tatonka restaurant in
Cherngtalay. The most popular restaurant in the Laguna area. Owner
Harold originally from Germany, is forgoing his night off and
providing all the food at his own expense. Volunteer Jenny from the
UK but who now divides her time between Phuket and France is
coordinating the event.
We now have confirmation that a film crew from CNA Singapore will
arrive on 2nd of January for 3 days to do a feature on Gill who has
been named as one of their Asians of the Year. She will be the first
non Asian to be so honoured. We hope that this will raise the
profile of SDF in the region.
Thank you again for supporting our work here.
All at SDF wish you a wonderful
holiday season.
Best wishes,
John.
27 Nov 07
Dear Friends,
With the weather having now changed work is progressing well and we are hopeful that the main shelters will be completed by the end of the year. I had a meeting today Sunday with Dr. Suchon who is overseeing the construction, to determine the sighting and design of the clinic and treatment areas, and additional accommodation for puppies , dogs receiving treatment and quarantine areas. In the photographs are Dr Suchon and his wife Khun Toom who is an experienced nurse and has worked for UNICEF and currently works for the International Red Cross here. She also acts as secretary to the board She will be taking over the management of the shelter on a voluntary basis when completed.
The building they are photographed in together is a large existing structure which will be converted to become the clinic and treatment area. The other two photographs are taken at the two main enclosures.
Our adoption drive is also going well, and several adult dogs as well as many puppies have been found new homes this month.
We have a vet from Sweden and another from Holland volunteering with us at the moment, so have been able to step up the number of sterilizations performed.
An Australian supporter has put together a video on you tube. Please consider sending to friends. Some of the photographs are not pleasant but all are of dogs that have been treated and you see the after photos as well. all the dogs featured were rehomed. It does I believe send a powerful message in a short space of time. The link is
http://www.youtube.com/cyoyo
Very best wishes from Thailand.
John
13 Nov 07. I am writing this to everybody who has donated or helped or pledged
to donate in the future.
To say that Gill and I, and all the volunteers here have been
overwhelmed by your support is an understatement. The vast majority
of donations have come from overseas, Europe, North America,
Australasia and Singapore and we fully realise that many of you have
never even visited Thailand, yet you continue to support us and make
personal sacrifices in trying to help the animals here who have
nobody else to help them, and no other voice to support them.
We would also like to mention the Marchig Trust, The Wetnose
Foundation and the Animal Protection Network Sweden for their
support. In addition the Evason hotel here on the island has pledged
support and its owners have already donated personally. The Evason
hotel is a 5* star hotel in the south of the island and anybody
looking for top class accommodation here I have no hesitation in
recommending this extremely environmentally friendly hotel.
As of today, taking into account pledged donations, we are getting
very close to our initial target. Dr. Suchon has organised the
labour and materials to save us money; though it is not clear what
the final bill will be as yet, there will certainly be a refuge for
dogs here on Phuket.
It is no exaggeration to say that without you there would be far
more unwanted dogs and cats left to suffer, and many others who
would have died indescribable deaths.
As you know it was always the mission of Soi dog Foundation to try
to sterilize the stray animal population so that in time it would no
longer exist.
However it is impossible for us to stand back and leave existing
animals to suffer pain and cruelty which is why a shelter is so
essential.
Dr Suchon's wife Khun Toom, is shortly going to join us voluntarily
and is looking to get into the local schools, and start an education
program, so that hopefully future generations here will have a
different view to the value of animals. She is very experienced
having already worked for UNICEF and is currently working for the
International Red Cross.
On Sunday the sun shone for the first time for over 2 weeks and has
continued for the past 2 days, so we hope that the dry season is now
upon us and progress will be rapid.
The attached photos were taken yesterday. The scale is difficult to
judge but on the first photo you can hopefully see that the
foundations are now in on the first block and the reinforcing steel
is in place for the fence pillars. The taller sections at the back
are where the reinforcing steel has been shuttered ready for
concrete to be poured in. The second photo just shows where the
second block has been marked out.
Gill's nomination as an "Asian of the year" has been confirmed and a
film crew will come from Singapore next month to film her at work.
Hopefully we will be able to put this film on the web site. John
The
Soi Dog Foundation has received an official letter in October 2007
from the head of the Phuket Provincial Livestock Office Dr Sunart
Wongchowarit thanking us for our help in the past 12 months, but in
effect saying thanks very much for your upgrading and improvements
to the PPLO dog pound, but we don’t need your assistance anymore,
please vacate the PPLO owned shelter.
Soi Dog
Foundation have spent well over 2,000,000THB on improving the
current shelter to make it a reasonable home for all the dogs in the pound,
and continue to pay all the running costs with the exception of
paying the 3 Government workers there and some of the food costs.
This amounts to over 150,000 THB per month. The sterilization and
treatment and external feeding programs are in addition to this. We
have also built a treatment center, and with the assistance of WSPA
an operating theatre at the pound. We have however in an effort to
get the PPLO to change their minds offered to pay all the costs
associated with running the facility. We do not consider the money
spent already as wasted as dogs that will continue to live there
will at least have somewhere habitable to live. Despite the efforts of our Thai board members to
negotiate a way to stay, this decision appears to be final.
We have therefore taken the step of
renting land on a
long term lease in Mai Khao, just north of the airport. (There is
simply no way that SDF can afford to buy land here). This land is
in a very quiet location and also has a house on site which will
convert easily to a clinic. It lacks natural shelter in the way of
trees, but in all other respects is a perfect location. We will
look to plant fast growing trees once we have built the shelter
and try to take more of the government dogs into our care. We have
now signed the lease and construction has commenced.
We have the agreement of the PPLO that we can remove what
are considered to be our dogs from the pound. This will amount
to around half the dogs, and these will be moved to the new
shelter as soon as it is complete. In the meantime we have been
told that we can continue to work in the pound for the time being.
We have also been told that we can continue to monitor the
situation there after we leave, and will seek to continue to
treat sick and injured dogs.
To build even a basic shelter is going to cost
conservatively 1,000,000 THB (32,000$US, 22,500 euros, 15,600UKP,
35,000$AUS approximately).
We currently have 50% of this money available
but once it has been used to build the shelter and having paid one
years advance rent it will leave us in a precarious position
financially. We are therefore making our plans and intentions known to
all of our supporters and asking our sponsors and donors to help
in any way they can by donating towards this cost if they are able
to.
If you are able to help. The most cost effective way is by
bank transfer to either the Dutch account or the Thai account.
Please note however that we have no idea where donations to the
Thai account have come from without being advised. Paypal is also
fine but we do have to pay commission.
If we can cover the costs it will make a huge difference
to what we can do both now and in the future. We should also like
to acknowledge donations by naming the enclosures etc., after
donors and groups of donors.
We do not like appealing for funds, and
would not do so if we did not feel that this was a life saving
measure that we have no option but to do . We have no idea
where most of the dogs originally came from, and it is simply not
possible to just dump them in locations they are not familiar
with, where they would be seen off by existing dogs and indeed the
local people. Other dogs were rescued from cruelty situations and
cannot be returned for obvious reasons though we will continue to
run our adoption program here.
The clinic in the SDF centre is named after Margot Homburg Park.
Margot was the original founder of the soi dog foundation, and it
would not have existed or achieved what is has without her.
For three years from 2003 to 2006 she worked tirelessly and
selflessly on behalf of the stray dogs and cats of Phuket.
Her vision was to see an end to the suffering of these animals
through sterilization.
The purpose of this clinic is to enable this work to continue, and
see her vision fulfilled. The new clinic at the SDF shelter
has been named the Margot Homburg Park clinic in honour of the founder and
former President of SDF.
A framed inscription is being placed in the clinic.
The new clinic, (sponsored by WSPA), was
completed at the end of January 07, and within days our first volunteer
vets arrived, Lara and Clair both from Scotland. Clair stayed for 2
weeks before returning to her job in Ireland and Lara stayed on for
a further 2 weeks before continuing on to Australia where she hopes
to work for the next 2 years.
Brian Stenson who has visited us several
times arrived from his practice in London, and joined Lara for her
last week. As I write Jen Kerr also from Scotland has arrived, and
will be with us for the next 10 days. What with Brian being
originally from Ireland it has been a real Celtic invasion!
Having volunteer vets over means we can
do more sterilizations than we could otherwise afford to do.
Laura and Brian at work
in the new clinic at the SDF shelter
Agility area
On
December 23rd 06 a new volunteer joined the team at the Soi Dog Pound
at Thalang Dog Shelter, Phuket.
Sonia
suggested that what was needed was an agility area to occupy the
dogs, and nurture a few handpicked dogs, that showed promise to
adapt to this new challenge and eventual housing.
Sonia
from South Africa has past experience with training guard/police dogs
there, and that experience has proved to be invaluable. She is calm
around the dogs but firm when it comes to expectations, but will never
force a dog into doing anything it doesn’t feel comfortable with. She
believes that not all dogs are suitable for training and one should
concentrate on those that are, after all the SDF are feeding and caring
for over 350 dogs with the main aim of rehousing.
Within
just one week Deang, the senior shelter operative had made with his own
hands, several challenging pieces of apparatus and it was time to
shortlist several dogs that looked promising.
On
January 4th severaltons of sand were delivered
and the area starts to take shape. On January 6th the area
was brightly painted by the volunteers and officially opened shortly
afterwards!! It has proved to be a great success with young puppies
being taught early on not only to be collared and walked on a lead, but
to be prepared for step/stair climbing when they hopefully join a loving
family.
Unfortunately some dogs cannot adjust to the training needed, and show
little enthusiasm, but some from the start enjoy their escape from their
cages or the pound, and relish in the treats and cuddles given after a
faultless round on the apparatus. The volunteers have benefited too, as
there is added joy seeing the pleasure the dogs are acquiring jumping
thru tyres, running thru barrels, scaling heights, and proving
themselves.
More
volunteers are needed to help exercise and train more dogs, and if you
have just a few hours to spare maybe just once a week please
contact SDF.
......................
Pictures above are of Dr
Trethep giving the dogs VD treatment. Ina, who manages the centre,
is on the far right.
Max's Diary End October 2006
Well, we’ve been in our new home for nearly one
month, which is hard to believe. Everyone
has been very busy sorting things out and finding out the best way of
doing things.
After we had managed to get all the dogs moved which
seemed to taken an interminable amount of time it all seemed very
chaotic. The problem of moving over 90 dogs from effectively one
end of the island to the other – each journey each way taking at least
one hour - was a logistical nightmare.
It sounds relatively
simple. 10 dogs in the vans for each journey that’s 5 journeys
for each of the two vans . Each journey there and back was 2 hours
plus loading and unloading time. OK . NO no no no no. Not all
the dogs like each other do they? And of course, we couldn’t put
them in individual cages or we would have only been able to get 5
dogs in each journey.
So
there was Ina at one end loading what we hoped would be a set of
friendly dogs for a one hour journey and me at the other unloading
what I hoped were 10 complete dogs. When I say complete I mean as
complete as they were when they left the old Center.
Anyway job done and now we are here. Since our arrival we have had
yet more dogs either brought in from the OrBorTor (local authority)
or dumped by people who have decided they can no longer be bothered
with their pet, or owners whose dog has had puppies (which they seem
surprised about) and they can’t cope with the extra dogs.
We
are now in the fortunate position to be able to take them. Our old
shelter was so small and so over-crowded that sometimes we despaired
of what to do to help these poor animals, at least our problem (at
the moment) isn’t space, it is how we find the money to buy food and
medicines. Lots of the dogs are in quite a bad way (actually by
European standards they are in a fairly horrendous condition) but
most of the time we can help them.
However, the upside is that we have had quite a lot of local
publicity which has brought a few people to visit and adopt, and the
Livestock Dept who have ownership of the site, have been very
helpful in letting us proceed with the improvements.
The
overall feeling in Soi Dog is very optimistic.
We have a very nice new home (although lots of
work still to do) and all that remains now is to make sure we can
continue to do the work that is fundamental to our cause. Namely:
reducing the population by sterilisation. For this we need your
continued support so please don’t desert us and PLEASE if you ever
visit Phuket please come and see us and all our four (well, OK
sometimes two or three) legged friends.
30 September 2006
The Big Move
26 September 2006
Getting Ready
Gill and Ina who worked
until 8:00pm last night cleaning office and store room.
Dogs will move there
Friday after the compounds etc., are all cleared of rubbish etc..
SDF Centre Moves
The Soi Dog
Foundation (SDF) (September 30th), closed its centre in
Phuket City. The center which was intended originally to be a
clinic, but rapidly became a shelter and re-homing center for
abandoned and abused dogs had been open for 18 months.
The 100 plus dogs
and staff have now moved to the Mid Road dog shelter north of Talang,
which SDF will operate alongside the Phuket Provincial Livestock
Office.
Maxine
Kent of SDF announced that extensive improvements to
the shelter which SDF are financing, were well under way, and had
reached the stage where it was now possible to move the dogs from
the Phuket City site, which was never intended as a shelter and was
not suitable for such a purpose.
“Our
staff will now work with all the dogs at the new center, to train
and socialize them. The aim is to re-home as many as possible as
these dogs make exceptionally loyal pets. We are also building a
modern clinic on the site which will enable us to provide on site
treatment, as well as to utilize volunteer vets in our ongoing
sterilization program, which has seen over 14,000 dogs and cats
sterilized in under 3 years on Phuket alone.
Our objective to
solve the stray dog problem remains unchanged, and international
observers believe we are getting close to achieving the number of
sterilizations required to achieve this. However we can only finish
the task if we can generate sufficient income from local businesses
and local people generally. The only reason we have been able to
achieve what we have is because of overseas investment, mainly as a
result of the tsunami, and this has now come to an end.
There are now less
stray animals on Phuket than there were when we started our work,
but if the residents and businesses of Phuket wish to see an end to
stray animals on the island, then they have to realize that this can
only be achieved at a cost.
Anybody interested
in adopting a dog please contact 081 788 4222.
Khun
Nit & Khun Nong Maly playing with the puppies after finishing the
outside sand run. We use sand from the beach because it attracts
less flies due to the fact it has more salt in it.
Just good friends!!
Equal
Opportunites!
New
office staff!
See a '3D' sketch
of how the Mid Road Shelter will look - drawn by our architect,
Best, who is kindly donating his time for free.
Elissa
& Lynn from Australia, visitors, outside centre donating money
